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MUST THE WAR GO ON? 



AN INQUIRY 



WHETHER THE UNION CAN BE RESTOHED BY ANY 

OTHER MEANS THAN WAR, AND WHETHER 

PEACE UPON ANY OTHER BASIS 

WOULD BE SAFE OR 

DURABLE. 



BY HENRY JLANDEBS. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEX, 

606 Chestnut Street. 

1863. 






H.T. Pub. Lib, - 

" We ought with reverence to apjDroach that tremendous divinity that 
loves courage, but commands counsel. War never leaves, where it found a 
nation. It is never to be entered into without mature deliberation; not a 
deliberation lengthened out into a perplexing indecision, but a deliberation 
leading to a sure and fixed judgment. When so taken up, it is not to be 
abandoned without reason as valid, as fully, and as extensively considered. 
Peace may be made as unadvisedly as war. Nothing is so rash as fearj 
and the counsels of pusillanimity very rarely put off, whilst they are 
always sure to aggravate, the evils from which they would fly." 

Burke. 



' In a theme so bloody-faced as this. 

Conjecture, expectation, and surmise 

Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted." 

Seco7id Fart of King Henry IV. Act i. scene iii. 



"Is all our travail turned to this effect? 
After the slaughter of so many peers, 
So many captains, gentlemen, and soldiers, 
That in this quarrel have been overthrown. 
And sold their bodies for their country's benefit, 
§hall^we ^t last conclude effeminate peace! 

.•^ •, \' • *• " ; ^ir»t Part «/> 



SiiNci Henry VI. Act v. scene iv. 



' rk'(i> wejCf ^ Vo?'.s ^ide! 'PcffSt for shame. 
And hanff a calf's skin on those recreant limbs.' 



King John. Act iii. scene i. 





DUPLiCATEj 



It must be confessed that the war which the Ameri- 
can people are now prosecuting, whether we con- 
sider the forces engaged, or the result sought to be 
accomplished, is one of the most momentous that 
has ever engaged the attention of mankind. Nearly 
or quite a million and a half of men are assembled in 
hostile array, and the great question in debate is the 
American Union. Whether the arbitrament of arms 
might have been averted, whether the best or wisest 
policy has been adopted by the party in power, 
whether our generals have displayed capacity or 
incapacity, still, the great question which the Ameri- 
can people have to determine for themselves and 
their posterity, is, whether, in the actual posture of 
affairs, the Union can he restored hy any other means 
than tear? and whether war itself can in the end 
accomplish that result? 

If the people come to know or believe that war 
alone can cut the gordian-knot, that an undivided 
country, and an unshorn greatness, can be pre- 



4 

served only by war, then war, under whatever dis- 
couragement of military disaster, or financial embar- 
rassment, or administrative folly, will be prosecuted 
until success crowns and justifies their efforts. 

First, then, can any other means be adopted — an 
armistice, a convention — which will accomplish the 
desire of all our hearts, which will place the country 
in the proud position she occupied before this mad 
outbreak, " the stars of union on her brow, and the 
rock of independence beneath her feet" — any other 
means but the genius of arms which can exorcise 
burning passions and wild ambitions, and constrain 
within the golden circle of law and constitution 
the dissevered portions of our common political 
heritage 1 

Whoever can believe this in the face of the public 
acts and declarations of the so-called Confederate 
Congress; the public and reiterated declarations of 
the envenomed and implacable Jefferson Davis;* 
the public and solemn acts of the legislatures of the 
seceded States; and the repeated and trenchant de- 

* In his recent message to the Confederate Congress, Jefferson Davis 
says: — "Earnest as has been our wish for peace, and great as have been 
our sacrifices and sufferings during the war, the determination of this 
people has, with each succeeding month, become more unalterably fixed 
to endure any sufferings, and continue any sacrifice, however prolonged, 
until their right to self-government and the sovereignty and independence 
of these States shall have been triumphantly vindicated and firmly estab- 
lished." The date of this message is January 12, 1863, and it is the latest 
official expression of the purpose and determination of the Southern 
people. 



clarations of the Southern press, in far greater degree 
the organ of Southern sentiment than is the North- 
ern press the organ of Northern sentiment; all 
supported and enforced by the greatest intensity of 
military effort; whoever can believe this, is a marvel 
of political credulity, a babe and suckling, at a time 
which requires the sinewy and robust qualities of a 
man. No; the object of the South is to sever and 
divide this Union. Not an act inconsistent with that 
object has been done, nor a voice in opposition to it 
been uttered by any Southern man who enjoys the 
confidence of the Southern people. They tell us 
through public bodies, through every organ of public 
sentiment, through all forms and modes of speech, and 
through the fire, and blood, and desolation of war, 
that they mean disunion. And shall we be lulled 
into a fatal security, be induced to grant an armis- 
tice, withdraw our blockade, and disband or reduce 
our army, because some member of Congress, or 
some member of the New Jersey legislature, upon 
some loose hypothesis of history or human nature, 
believes that if the land and naval forces were not in 
the way, the North and South, from mere passional 
attraction, would rush into each other's arms in a 
fond, eternal embrace! 

Besides, if these people who have rebelled, who 
have cast off", and defied the national authority, 
desire to make terms, if they desire to return again 
into the bosom of the Union, let them announce 



their wishes. They began the war, (we do not 
here inquire as to the antecedent causes,) let them 
initiate the peace. But for our part, let us not 
make advances which will be received with con- 
tempt and rejected with scorn.* Let us maintain 
the honour and uphold the dignity of the Govern- 
ment, and not hawk them in the marts of rebellion. 
If we must fail in the present contest, let us fail 
without dishonour, and make a record which our 
posterity can read without shame. 

Upon all the evidence accessible to the public, we 
are justified in asserting that the only mode of 
restoring the Union, if it is to be restored at all, is 
by arms. The path of safety for us and our 
children is the path of war. Intimations and sug- 
gestions of peace, when there is no peace, will only 
have the effect to sickle over and unnerve our en- 
terprise, and pluck victory from our grasp. The sen- 
timent of union is the natural and master sentiment 
of this people, and when the conviction enters into 
their heart of hearts that war alone can insure it, 
they will support its burdens, and bear up under its 
difficulties and embarrassments with a cheerful and 
heroic spirit. 

But will war produce the result at which we aim, 
liamely, the extension of the national authority over 
the seceded States'? That, we conceive, depends, 

* We refer, of course, to advances looking to peace, ou the basis of a 
restoratibn of the Union. 



under God, upon ourselves, upon our spirit and 
perseverance. Where the preponderance of numbers 
and resources are so greatly upon our side, nothin<T 
but a plain abandonment of our duty and our inte- 
rest can accomplish our feilure and our ruin. Our 
obvious difficulty, at present, is a financial one; but 
" whilst our heart is whole, it will find means or make 
them." Our resources of every kind are abundant, 
and should be employed to the utmost, if necessary, 
to insure and compel success. Our agriculture is 
flourishing; our industry, in most of its. branches, 
vigorous and remunerative. No man in any de- 
scription has been deprived of his conveniences, and 
perhaps, we might add, of his luxuries, in conse- 
quence of the war. But to make our resources 
available, we should adopt a sound system of finance. 
The most alarming symptom of our present condi- 
tion is the depreciation of our paper currency. This 
must be arrested, or the most disastrous conse- 
quences will follow. We may preserve the confi- 
dence of the people in the capacity of the Govern- 
ment to ultimately redeem its credit; but the 
moment the issue of Treasury notes exceeds the 
amount necessary or useful as a circulating medium, 
they will begin to depreciate, and this depreciation 
will be irregular, rapid, increasing, and out of all 
proportion to the excess. It is the duty of Congress 
to save the Government and the country from the 
fearful evils of a depreciated currency. • This can 



6 

be done by a combined system of taxation and 
loans. 

There may be other methods; and that which pro- 
poses to get rid of the circulation of the Banks, has 
much to commend it, though it may perhaps en- 
counter constitutional objections; but this is direct 
and certain. Under the present tax law, an annual 
revenue of possibly two hundred millions may be 
derived. Enlarge the objects of taxation, and in- 
crease the rate upon all those now taxed, two or 
three-fold, and we would have a revenue of five or 
six hundred millions. And this would not press 
insupportably upon any class of the community. 
Indeed, as compared with the policy of an unlimited 
issue of Treasury notes, it would be an incalculable 
saving to the creditor class, and to all those classes 
who are dependent on fixed incomes and the wages 
of labour. Upon these classes a depreciated cur- 
rency bears with inexorable severity. It robs the 
capitalist of his fortune, and the labourer of the 
fruits of his toil. In efi'ect, it takes from the sailor 
and the soldier, who are to the country its assurance 
of safety and success, one-half, or one-quarter, more 
or less, of their pay, according to the ratio of depre- 
ciation. It is due in a peculiar sense to the army 
and navy, that they be paid in a sound currency. 

A system of taxation which of itself would go far 
to defray the current expenses of the war, would at 
the same time insure a ready sale of Government 



bonds to meet the other requirements of the Trea- 
sury. Temporary expedients will not enable us to 
carry on a protracted war. A permanent system 
must be adopted, a system which will not be dislo- 
cated or deranged by occasional defeat or unexpected 
disaster, or which, in supplying a present necessity, 
will have the effect to impair its capacity to supply 
all future ones. With regular and unfailing means, 
the Government must in the end triumph. What 
man has done, man may do. What other nations 
and other people have done to accomplish what they 
deemed important objects, we can do to accomplish 
what is necessary to our safety, our honour, and our 
peace. The Peloponnesian war lasted twenty-seven 
years; the first Punic war, twenty-four; and the 
second, eighteen years. Germany has witnessed a 
thirty years' war; and the war against Louis XIV., 
ending with the Treaty of Ryswick, was a war of 
eighteen years' duration. There are those now living, 
the first twenty years of whose existence were co- 
temporaneous with the wars growing out of the 
French Revolution. What may be the duration of 
the present war, is known only to the Great Disposer. 
But it should have been foreseen from the outset, 
that with a considerable population and resources, 
with an immense territory, with a vast system of 
railroads, insuring a speedy transmission of troops 
and supplies to any threatened point, and with the 
impetus of revolutionary zeal and fanaticism, the 



10 

South possessed the elements of a prolonged resist- 
ance. Undoubtedly, the light and facile predictions 
of men in power, that the rebellion would be speedily 
overthrown, has had an injurious influence. The 
utter failure of these predictions has had a tendency 
to produce discouragement at home, and to create 
doubt of our success abroad. 

It seems, however, characteristic of the Anglo- 
Saxon race, wdth all their hardihood and tenacity, to 
be easily elated and easily depressed. They enter 
upon a war with the most sanguine expectations, 
and at the first reverse give way to unmanly appre- 
hensions. " I remember," says Mr. Burke, " in the 
beginning of what has lately been called the Seven 
Years' War, that an eloquent writer and ingenious 
speculator. Dr. Brown, upon some reverses which 
happened in the beginning of that war, published an 
elaborate philosophical discourse to prove that the 
distinguishing features of the people of England had 
been totally changed, and that a frivolous effeminacy 
was become the national character. Nothing could 
be more popular than that work. It was thought a 
great consolation to us, the light people of this 
country, (who were and are light, but who were not 
and are not eft'eminate,) that we had found the causes 
of our misfortunes in our vices. Pythagoras could 
not be more pleased with his leading discovery. But 
whilst in that splenetic mood, we amused ourselves 
in a sour critical speculation, of which we were our- 



11 

selves the objects, and in which every man lost his 
particular sense of the public disgrace in the epi- 
demic nature of the distemper; whilst, as in the 
Alps, goitre kept goitre in countenance ; whilst we 
were thus abandoning ourselves to a direct confession 
of our inferiority to France; and whilst many, very 
many, were ready to act upon a sense of that inferi- 
ority, a few months effected a total change in our 
variable minds. We emerged from the gulf of that 
speculative despondency, and were buoyed up to the 
highest point of practical vigour. Never did the 
masculine spirit of England display itself with more 
energy, nor ever did its genius soar with a prouder 
preeminence over France, than at the time when 
frivolity and effeminacy had been at least tacitly 
acknowledged as their national character by the good 
people of this kingdom."* 

We are now having our season of doubt, uneasi- 
ness, and dissatisfaction. But, after all, notwith- 
standing the failure of our military efforts at certain 
points and on certain lines of operation, caused, it is 
said, (we know not with how much or how little 
truth,) by the interference of the civil department of 
the Government, and, in part, by an unprovided for 
and unexpected power of resistance on the side of 
the enemy; by delays, by incapacity, by prodigal 
waste of strength and resources on the part of some- 

* Burke's Works, Vol. IV. p. 336. 



12 

hodij^ we have nevertheless gained very considerable 
and substantial successes. To say nothing of our 
acquisitions on the seaboard, we have redeemed Mis- 
souri, Kentucky, and a large portion of Tennessee. 
Western Virginia is safe from the grasp of secession ; 
and the capture of New Orleans* subjects Louisiana 
practically to our sway. But since we have been 
baffled at Richmond, at Vicksburg — since, in fact, 
our reasonable or our unreasonable hopes have not 
all been fulfilled, we are disposed, such is the temper 
of the public mind, to regard nothing gained. 

It is vain, however, to look for uniform and unin- 
terrupted success. Man is fallible as well as mortal, 
and the best laid plans often go awry. The most 
successful v/ars, in their results, that have ever been 
prosecuted, were wars of very variable fortunes. But 
while there will be, from the incapacity of man, or the 
accidents of fortune, reverses, with consequent disap- 
pointment and discouragement, there never should 
be despair. The Romans, with Hannibal at their 
gates, with the fairest portions of Italy subject to his 
sway, preserved a high and unconquerable spirit, 
would listen to no terms that might tarnish the 
honour or reduce the weight and power of their 



* Mr. Edouard Laboulaye, in his Essay in the Revue Nationale, ivhich 
has been republished in our press, says: " To possess New Orleans is to 
command a valley which comprises two-thirds of the United States.' 
This is what an intelligent foreigner thinks of the value of that city to the 
pjwer which liolds it. 



13 

country; and the result of the struggle was the 
total overthrow of Carthage. The preponderance 
of strength was on the side of the Romans ; and, 
though suffermg defeat after defeat, that fact, 
together with their inexorable resolution, deter- 
mined and made sure their triumph and ascendency. 
Mr. Stille, in his recent excellent pamphlet, 
has shown us what England did, and in the face 
of what obstacles and discouragements, in the pro- 
secution of the Peninsular War. There is another 
instructive chapter in her history, of an earlier 
date, which is equally worthy of our attention. 
We refer to the war which was concluded by the 
Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Throughout the whole 
of it, England's principal strength, as has been 
said by Mr. Burke, was found in the resolution 
of the people. What was her condition at that 
period] Scotland dissatisfied and discontented; 
Ireland held in subjection by an army of forty 
thousand men; the current coin of the realm 
"reduced so low as not to have above three parts 
in four of the value in the shilling;" the revenue 
arising from commerce comparatively trifling; and 
the public credit a thing which could hardly be 
said to exist. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
"with the Lord Mayor of London at his side, 
was obliged, like a solicitor for an hospital, to go, 
cap in hand, from sliop to shop, to borrow an 
hundred pounds, and even smaller sums." Yet, 



14 

says Mr. Burke,* "in that state of things, amidst 
the general debasement of the coin, the fall of the 
ordinary revenue, the failure of all the extraordi- 
nary supplies, the ruin of commerce, and the almost 
total extinction of an infant credit, the Chancellor of 
the Exchequer himself, whom we have just seen 
begging from door to door, came forward to move a 
resolution, full of vigour, in which, far from being 
discouraged by the generally adverse fortune, and 
the long continuance of the war, the Commons 
agreed to address the crown in the following manly, 
spirited, and truly animating style : 

'"This is the eighth year in which your Majesty's 
most dutiful and loyal subjects the Commons, in 
Parliament assembled, have assisted your Majesty 
with large supplies for carrying on a just and neces- 
sary war, in defence of our religion, and preservation 
of our laws, and vindication of the rights and liber- 
ties of the people of England. 

" 'To show to your Majesty and all Christendom, 
that the Commons of England will not be amused or 
diverted from their firm resolutions of obtaining by 
wai\ a safe and honourable peace, we do, in the 
name of those we represent, renew our assurances to 
sup[)ort your Majesty and your government against 
all your enemies at home and abroad; and that we 
will effectually assist you in carrying on the war 
against France.' " 

* Letters on a Regicide Peace. 



15 

The real object of that war was to reduce the 
power of France, and to maintain the ascendency of 
England in the affairs and councils of Europe. It 
was believed to be an important object, and the 
courage and constancy she displayed in prosecuting 
and accomplishing it, should serve as a lesson and a 
guide to us in the noble endeavour to provide for 
our future security by preserving our country un- 
broken. Let not the historian have it to record, 
that the American people, in their fresh and vigor- 
ous manhood, in the light of the great examples fur- 
nished them by the states of ancient and modern 
times, had not the fortitude to suppress and put down 
an insidious rebellion, but for the sake of their ease, 
permitted their country to be torn in twain! 

But suppose that our resolution should give way, 
and we should be brought to that state of humiliation 
in which we should be ready to make terms with the 
seceded States on the basis of their independence! 
What would be the character of those terms'? 
Where would the boundary lines be fixed] Could 
we abandon and give up the fortresses that com- 
mand the commerce of the gulf, and are essential to 
its protection'? Could we give up Fortress Monroe, 
and our controul of the waters of the Chesapeake ^ 
Could we surrender Western Virginia, which has 
shown throughout an undivided and unsuspecting 
loyalty, and which, in the possession of a foreign 
power, would be a sort of natural fortification, com- 



16 

manding the upper waters of the Ohio, and from 
which predatory forces could issue to plunder and lay 
waste the valleys of Pennsylvania, or armies to dis- 
pute their permanent possession'? Could we, as men 
of honour or humanity, abandon the loyal citizens of 
East Tennessee, who throughout this contest, amid 
persecution, suffering, and death, have remained 
firm and undaunted and true to the flag and country 
of their fathers'? Could we abandon Kentucky, 
which, under sore trials and temptations, has in the 
main been 

" faithful found 



Amous; the faithless 



and be shorn of our absolute controul of the naviga- 
tion of the Ohio'? Could we consent that Missouri, 
which is directly in our pathway to the States of the 
Pacific, and which contains within itself an imperial 
domain, and a population which approaches in num- 
bers to an equality with that of North and South 
Carolina combined, should take her place in the 
rival and hostile confederacy"? Could we permit 
the frontier of a foreign power to be the line of the 
Potomac, and the capital of our country to be com- 
manded by batteries on Arlington heights'? 

Yet, if in our abasement we should be ready to 
offer terms at all, this is the entertainment to which 
we would be invited — this the sort of submission 
that would be required of us; submission, in the first 



17 

place, to the dismemberment of our country, and 
then to the surrender of States which have clung to 
us in all our fortunes, and whose possession is neces- 
sary to our security! In a word, it would be sub- 
mission to a present full of ignominy and disgrace, 
and a future full of peril ! 

But even were we base enough and abject enough 
to think submission, and such submission, we 
should have no peace; we should not only have 
perpetual cause of collision with the rival power 
placed in such audacious neighbourhood, but we 
should have contention and war within our own 
borders, and at our own hearthstones. No sooner 
would the separation be accomplished, than political 
intrigue would seek to withdraw Pennsylvania and 
the States of the Northwest from their relations to 
the Federal Government, and attach them to the 
Southern Confederacy. The men of lead and influ- 
ence at the South know full well that the vast and 
fertile regions watered by the Mississippi and its 
tributaries, will, within a short flight of time, have a 
population of forty or flfty millions ; and that mean- 
while, the South, slowly recovering from the loss and 
exhaustion of this conflict, with her system of slavery 
practically excluding emigration, will be in presence 
of this irrepressible population, like an infant 
beneath an overhanging mass of earth or rock, 
which any accident may precipitate with crushing 
force upon its head. They would endeavour, there- 
2 



18 

fore, to form a union with the Northwest, and thus 
avert the otherwise inevitable future conflict for the 
control of the Mississippi. Pennsylvania, too, would 
be brought within the circle of these intrigues and 
designs. But would they be likely to succeed here 
or elsewhere'? There are those who think that so 
f:ir as the Northwest is concerned they inevitably 
would. Have these persons considered the obstacles 
in the way] Have they considered the character of 
the western population, and its origin'? Have they 
ever heard of the Western Reserve'? Do they reflect 
that the ever-increasing population of the northern 
portion of those States in the vicinity of the great 
rivers and lakes is in the main, exclusive of Euro- 
j^.ean emigration, from New England, from New 
York, from New Jersey, from northern and western 
Pennsylvania; and that the Union of their fathers 
is the only Union to which they would voluntarily 
belong'? 

AVe have referred to the northern portions of those 
States; but we have no evidence that the southern 
portions would greatly differ from their northern 
neighbours. Nevertheless, in certain political con- 
tingencies, the men in favour of a union with the 
South might hold the reins of power in Pennsyl- 
vania and elsewhere, and endeavour to consummate 
it. But does anybody who has ever read the great 
volume of human nature suppose that such a move- 
ment could be essayed without being resisted to the 



19 

utmost, and to the last gasp. AVill the fathers, 
brothers, sons, of those who have poured out their 
blood and laid down their lives in resisting the 
secession of the South, consent that their own 
States shall imitate the abhorred example — shall 
strike hands, and join the authors of their calamity 1 
Will the survivors of the hard-fought fields of this 
sanguinary contest, the sad remains of war, consent 
that the theatre of a successful revolt shall be their 
country'? Will all those classes who, in their 
respective spheres, have supported the war, and 
devoted to its prosecution their property and all 
that they hold dear, submit that such should be the 
inglorious fruit of their endeavours'? No; they 
would resist, they would spurn the political act or 
ordinance that sought to deliver them over to the 
South, and internecine and neighbourhood war 
would be the result. 

Meanwhile, would the general Government re- 
main an idle spectator of the contest '? Would it 
permit, unmoved and unresisting, these jewels to be 
wrested from its crown'? Certainly not. The 
general Government would come to the support of 
its friends, and the southern Government to the 
support of theirs, and thus the war would be 
renewed, and would be a local and general, a 
national and neighbourhood war, at one and the 
same time. In such a war, farewell, a long farewell, 
to the prosperity and happiness of Pennsylvania. 



20 

The springs and sources of her greatness would be 
<lried up ; her fair and fertile plains, her vast system 
of industry, her public works, her towns and cities, 
would be swept as with the besom of destruction. 
Let her look on Virginia, and contemplate an 
outline, but not the finished picture, of what would 
then be her condition. To save her from that con- 
dition and that fate, to save our whole country from 
the terrible evils that would ensue from the success 
of the South, it is necessary to prosecute the war 
with unceasing effort, with unflagging energy, until 
our objects are fully attained.* And those objects 

* M. Laboulaye, in the Essay already referred to, makes the following 
striking observations, which deserve the serious consideration of those 
who vainly suppose that peace will be a panacea for all our ills: 

"Now suppose the separation accomplished, and that the new confede- 
ration comprises all the slave States, the North loses in one day its power 
;md its institutions. The republic is struck in the heart. There are in 
America two nations in the presence of each other, two rival peoples 
always on the point of quarrelling. Peace, in short, will not put an end 
to enmity; the remembrance of past greatness, of the destroyed Union, 
will not be effaced. The South, as conquerer, will not be less the friend 
of slavery, nor less fond of domination. The enemies of slavery, masters 
of their policy, will certainly not be softened by separation. What will 
the confederation of the South be to the North? A foreign power estab- 
lished in America, with a frontier of fifteen hundred miles, a frontier 
exposed on all sides, and consequently always menacing or menaced. 
This power, hostile even from its vicinity, and still more so from its insti- 
tutions, will possess some of the most considerable portions of the new 
world; it will have half the coast of the Union; it will command the Gulf 
of Mexico, an internal sea which is the third of the Mediterranean ; it will 
be mistress of the mouths of the Mississippi, and able, at pleasure, to ruin 
the populations of the West. It will, therefore, be necessary that the 
remains of the old Union be always ready to defend itself from its rival. 



21 

can be attained as certainly now, as economically in 
point of blood and treasure, as at any future period. 
We assume that at some time, either now or here- 

Questions of customs, dues, and of frontiers, rivalries, jealousies, all the 
curses which T^eigh upon old Europe, will overwhelm America at once. It 
will be necessary to establish custom-houses over a space of five hundred 
leagues, to construct and arm forts on this immense frontier, maintain 
large standing armies and a navy; in other words, it will be necessary to 
renounce the old Constitution, weaken municipal independence, and con- 
centrate power. Adieu to the former glorious liberty! Adieu to those 
institutions which have made America the common country of all those 
who had no room to breathe in Europe ! The work of Washington will be 
destroyed ; men will find themselves in a situation full of difficulties and 
perils. That such a future should rejoice those who cannot pardon 
America her prosperity and her greatness, I can readily understand. 
History is full of such sad jealousy. That a people accustomed to liberty 
should risk its last man and its last cent to preserve the heritage of its 
fathers, I can still better understand, and I approve of it. What I do not 
understand is, that there are in Europe persons who believe themselves to 
be liberals even while reproaching the North for its generous resistance, 
and while advising it to make a shameful abdication. War is a fearful 
evil, but out of it may come a durable peace. The South may become 
tired of a contest which exhausts it. The old Union may rise up again, 
the future may be saved. But what can come of separation, except war 
without end, and calamities without number? This tearing of a country 
to pieces is a downfall past remedy: such a misfortune can only be 
accepted when we are crushed. 

"Hitherto I have reasoned on the hypothesis that the South will remain 
an independent power. But, unless the West shall join the Confederates, 
and the Union shall be reestablished minus New England, this independence 
is a chimera. It may last some years ; but in ten or twenty years, when 
the West shall have doubled or trebled its free population, what will the 
confederation be, (weakened as it will be by servile culture,) alongside of 
a nation of thirty millions of men, which will enclose it on two sides? In 
order to resist it, the South will have to lean upon Europe; it can exist 
only on condition of being protected by a great maritime power; and Eng- 
land alone is in a state to guarantee to it its sovereignty. This will be a 



22 

after, they must in the main be attained. For, if we 
would have permanent peace and security, it is an 
indispensable condition that there should be substan- 
tially a restoration of the Union. 

Between us and our objects stand the southern 
armies in Virginia and the Southwest.* Defeat, 
break up, and scatter these armies, and the basis of 
the rebellion falls. It is supported by force, and 
when the force fails, there 's an end. Undoubtedly, 
it will require courage, skill, and time, to overthrow 
this force; but if our heart remains whole, if our 
finances are kept in a sound condition, the issue is 
not uncertain. 

new danger to free America and to Europe. There is no marine in tiie 
South, and while slavery lasts there never -will be any; it will be England 
who, from the very first moment, will seize the monopoly of cotton, and 
furnish the South with capital and ships. In two words, the triumph of 
the South will result in the reinstallation of England on that continent 
whence the policy of Louis XVI. and Napoleon expelled her ; weakened 
neutrals and France will again be involved in all those questions relative 
to the freedom of the seas which have cost us two hundred years of 
struggle and suffering. The American Union, in defending its rights, has 
established the independence of the ocean. The Union destroyed, English 
preponderance will instantly revive. Peace will be exiled from the world; 
there will be the return of a policy which has benefited only our rivals. 
This is what Napoleon felt, but what is forgotten now. It seems that 
history is nothing but a collection of tales fit to amuse youth; no one is 
willing to understand the lessons of the past. If the experience of our 
fathers were not lost in our ignorance, we should see that in asserting its 
independence, in maintaining the national unity, it is our cause as 
well as its own which the North is defending. All our prayers should be 
for our old and faithful friends. The weakening of the United States will 
be our own weakness. On the first quarrel with England, we shall regret 
too late our having abandoned a policy which for forty years has been our 
security." 



23 

It is vastly important that the Democratic party, 
which has in the past exercised so controling an 
influence in the State and National Governments, 
should not — from opposition to the present Admin- 
istration, from opposition to its conduct and policy, 
as being in some things unwise, and in others 
unconstitutional, and in many things wanting in 
elevation and dignity — be betrayed, even in appear- 
ance, into opposition to the war, which is the cause 
of our country, and, for weal or woe, involves its 
fate. In every war which the Government has 
hitherto waged, that party has rallied with unbroken 
and unfaltering ranks to its succour and support. 
In the far more stupendous contest in which we are 
now engaged, let it do no discredit to the bright 
examples of the past, but, animated and inspired by 
the old feeling and the old patriotism, 

" Stand for its country's glory fast, 
And nail her colours to the mast." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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